In speaking of the parable given by Christ Jesus of the man who, having found the "pearl of great price," goeth and selleth all and buyeth it, Mary Baker Eddy says on page 253 of "Miscellaneous Writings": "Buyeth it! Note the scope of that saying, even that Christianity is not merely a gift, as St. Paul avers, but is bought with a price, a great price; and what man knoweth as did our Master its value, and the price that he paid for it?"
Until men are aware of the value of this greatest of all pearls, they will not be willing to pay for it, and therefore they will not possess it. They will continue to haggle for it; to hope that there will be some means of possessing it without paying the full price. Or they will endeavor to satisfy themselves in other ways at a lower cost, sometimes at their own or another's expense. And this because they believe what they now possess and desire might by different means be jeopardized or taken from them.
Christ Jesus paid the great price, and he knew that sooner or later everyone would have to do so. He did this without hesitation, without regret, because he discerned where alone value is to be found. With all that is based upon the estimate of mortality, its tributes to possession and accretion, its judgment of riches or poverty, of worth or worthlessness, the Master was utterly at variance. Something of this the prophet Haggai had expressed when he declared, "Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes."
